A Dangerous Criminal

Hermione got out of the bath, wrapped herself in a towel made of real Egyptian cotton. It was so soft. With a little embarrassment, she realized not only were her clothes gone, but...

She opened the door to reveal Draco who was waiting, his eyes slightly hooded with sleepiness.

She blushed. "I don't have anything to wear," she said in a small voice.

He nodded. "Yes, of course. I knew that. I had some sent over. Come." He walked down the hall and Hermione stepped tentatively after him. Sent over?

He opened another door after a few turns of the halls. On a bed sat several piles of what looked like freshly laundered, new clothes; dresses, slacks, shirts, blouses, socks, a few sweaters, night gowns, everything in multiples.

"This is where you will be sleeping and these are your clothes that you'll wear."

It wasn't long before she realized that everything was white. Her clothes, that is.

He appeared at the door as she entered clad in her towel. She smelled of sweet, fruity soaps and shampoos. He could almost taste it in the air.

"I will lock your door at night and you will stay here until morning. All the windows are locked. Incase you've thought of this, Apparating will not be an issue. Like at Hogwarts, you cannot Apparate here in my home." He sounded official. "Good night." She grabbed the door, almost too embarrassed to ask.

"H-how did you know my sizes?" She fought to keep her glare on him.

He had that smirk again. "I checked your clothes." With that, the door shut for the night.

---

"HE'S WHAT?!" Harry yelled.

Jonathan held the cell phone from his ear at arms length.

"WHAT HAPPENED?"

"I told you what happened!" he shouted in the phone.

"I can't believe it! Why did you let her alone?!"

"I didn't! And it wasn't my fault!" Jonathan was irritable again.

There was a pregnant pause on the line and Jonathan carefully put the phone by his ear. Harry wasn't talking.

"What do we do?"

"I'll tell you what we're not doing! We're not gonna sit here and wait for that great prat harm her!"

---

Hermione found a pair of knickers, a bra, and a pair of very comfortable flannel pajamas. She put them on quickly just in case Draco decided to "pop in". She sighed sadly as she climbed into her feather bed.

For the first time, she couldn't see a way out of this. Harry told her to be careful and she'd walked right into a mouse trap.

It wasn't long before she cried herself to sleep.

---

Hermione woke the next morning to Draco at the foot of her bed. She jumped in shock as she rubbed her eyes. "What?"

"Breakfast is waiting for you in the kitchen. Get dressed," he said in his official tone. He got up and shut the door again.

Hermione found her way downstairs and to the kitchen. Draco was waiting for her, but she wasn't hungry. She stared down at her plate, her stomach empty with no appetite.

"Does Misses Hermione not like her food?" squeaked something down and to the left of her. She almost fell out of her chair. It was a house elf. A girl elf.

"N-no, it's fine. Really. I'm just not hungry is all," she smiled, talking fast. She got out of her chair out of reflex. She didn't know why she was so frightened. She'd been plenty of house elves.

The elf looked distraught. "Does you not liking your chair either?" it squeaked.

Hermione turned to Draco for assistance and back at the elf now clinging to the hem of her white dress. It came to her shins and the elf's weight made her bend her knees.

"Oh, you poor thing," Hermione said, patting the elf's head. "Everything is perfect. It's just-"

The elf beamed suddenly and let go. "Thank you, Misses. I try's."

Hermione sat back down and the elf ran off.

"You keep elves in the house?" she asked him, still not eating. "Why?"

"So I don't have to cook. Or clean. That's a lady's work, not suitable for a man."

"If you kidnapped me so I'd do your housework, you've got another thing-"

He snorted. "Please. I wish it was that simple."

He had a wine glass, filled with whiskey no doubt. She didn't mention it.

"Eat."

"I'm not hungry," she said gritting her teeth.

"Eat anyway. I'm not going to starve you. I've already stolen you from your home. I won't have you starving to death on my conscience."

"You mean you have one? Wow, that's news to me."

"Oh, cram it, Granger," he snapped. He put his glass to one side and pulled a cigarette out of his back pocket. He took a lighter and lit it.

"Cigarettes are hazardous to your health, mind you," she told him crudely.

"Thanks for telling me or I'd have never known," he said sarcastically. He took a long, hard drag on it and blew out in her face. She coughed and covered her nose and mouth, hoping he died a slow, horrible death because of his terrible habit.

Again he insisted she eat something.

"I'd rather starve than-"

"Than what?" Gray clouds filled the room.

Hermione didn't answer his question, fighting not to cough. "Why are all my clothes white?"

"Why does it matter? Maybe I like white." He shrugged.

"If it doesn't matter than why can't you answer me?"

"Reverse psychology won't work on me, Granger." He chuckled and took another drag from his cigarette. "Eat or I'll make you. Trust me, you won't like it."

---

Hermione didn't eat all that day and went to bed feeling hollow. She wouldn't trust anything he made, or had made by the elves. She wasn't sure whether or not he'd poisoned it.

Surprisingly, he'd just shrugged it off after swearing he'd "make" her eat. "Your loss."

She watched his every move and memorized every place he went. He made her follow him everywhere. She'd learned he slept downstairs. Which was odd when his bed was upstairs.

She went to bed early and she waited for him to lock the door. Good, she thought. Now all I have to do is wait.

She waited for many hours until she almost found herself falling asleep. She was almost sure he must be asleep by now. It had to be around three in the morning.

But somehow she had to escape her room first. She couldn't Apparate, she didn't have her wand or mobile...

She stopped to ponder if Jonathan had received her text message. What's bloody taking him so long to find me?!

To her luck, she found a flat-tipped screwdriver under her bed. She used it to force open the lock. It unlocked and she quietly opened it.

She tiptoed down the hall, to the stairs and down, through the living hall to the den, and through a maze of halls. She got on her hands and knees to make sure he wasn't just walking around in the dark. She listened. There was not a sound.

She got up and twisted his doorknob... It was unlocked!

Well, go figure, he never imagined she'd escape.

She silently tiptoed in. It was dark and hard to see.

He had a pair of pants, she found, hanging on a chair. She checked them for her wand or phone. Nothing.

Duh! He probably has them on him.

Hermione snuck over to his bedside- well, he was lying in the middle of his extravagant bed. She would have to crawl - carefully to not wake him. If she squinted her eyes, she could see her phone. It was resting outside his pocket. She could just grab it.

She leaned over and rested her hand on it. He rolled in his sleep, hitting her arm. She panicked. He was stirring. What was she to do?

Shit!

He stopped. Her phone had now fell into his pocket. She groaned mutely.

She leaned over again and reached inside his pocket.

She felt something snatch her hand. His.

Double shit!

Draco had really stirred. His hand flew into his pocket, brought out her phone and threw it against the wall where it broke into many pieces. All the blood rushed from her face to her toes as he sat up.

"Damn, Granger, are you that frisky this late at night?" he replied in a hoarse voice. "Because if you are-" He pulled on her wrist and she fell onto his bed next to him, letting out a petrified squeal. "Then you should have just asked," he whispered, leaning over and rolling on top of her.

He groaned huskily and began kissing her ear. "Don't you ever try to use that phone again, love. Or they'll be worse consequences-"

"I'll show you consequences if you don't GET OFF ME!" she shouted, pushing desperately with all her might to get him away from her body.

"What were you doing out of your room?" he said in a gruff whisper. "How?"

He sounded much angrier again and for a minute she was afraid of him. "Can you blame me?!" she said hysterically.

Mechanically, without even giving it a second cruel thought, he got up and let her up.

"Who do you think you are?!" she said, trying hard to keep up her brave wall, backing away from his side of the bed. "Just because you have money and you think you're cool, it doesn't mean you can have any woman you want! You're an ass and you were always an ass! I shouldn't be surprised that you'd try such a thing on me, but I am. I would rather die than ever let you touch me like that! If that's why I'm here - because you're not telling me - than kill me now because I won't take it! You're an arogant bastard who murdered his mother and father with his bare hands -"

"I deserved that," he said solemnly, "but I would get my facts straight before I accused someone."

"What are you talking about? What facts?! Everything was there!" There, meaning his home where the murdering had occured. "There is nothing to understand! I know what you did! I'm not crazy!" when quite actually, she did sound out of her mind. "I knew you at Hogwarts for SEVEN YEARS! Quit playing me like I'm an idiot."

"You really are the dumbest smart person I've ever met. You really are. But now you're going back upstairs." He tossed Hermione over his shoulder. She resumed to kick him in the chest. One too many caused him to fall to his knees, throwing her to the ground beneath him. Her head hit the wood floor with a ka-thunk!

Hermione mouthed "ow" as she massaged her head, vaguely noticing Draco hovering above her. She opened her eyes, watching him gasp in pain, on his hands and knees.

"What... the hell... was that... for?" he tried to say.

"Are you that weak or something?" she groaned. "I barely kicked you."

"No," he said angrily. She tried to sit up, but couldn't. Instead, she laid quite still.

He said quite roughly, "Get up," standing up and pulling Hermione to her feet. He pushed her out of her room, tugging her along.

As he trudged up the stairs she could hear him muttering under his breath. "You know I'll find out what or what you didn't do whether you tell me or not. So, you might as well just tell me, Malfoy," she said calmly.

He stopped briefly, but then continued not replying to her at all.

She sighed. "You kidnapped me for no reason, than? Just to look pretty in your house, wherever this is? Do you plan on killing me too?" She didn't sound scared by this thought. She was too tired and exhausted to be afraid of him right now.

"Shut up," was all he said. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

He brought her to her room and stopped. "Show me where the screwdriver is. I know that's what you found." He sounded indifferent at this point.

She bent down and picked it up. It was lying just on the floor next to the door. He took it from her.

"I can trust you won't try leaving your room again, yes?" he said. He looked at her with an air of annoyance as if she were a child.

"I hope you have a good reason for keeping me locked up in here like this." She glared at him with a look of pure hatred before he shut the door and locked it.

---

Harry had continually tried to call Hermione's mobile but for a whole day there was no response. And when he called the last time it had said in a mechanical voice that the line had been disconnected. He didn't know how else to reach her.

When Jonathan had called Harry yesterday, it had been while he was sleeping so it had really agitated him. Even more horrible news, when he Jonathan told him what had happened to Hermione he practically went off his rocket. He immediately went out of his hotel room, down to the coaches room and roused him.

Coach told him he couldn't go off to go find his girlfriend and that if he did he'd be dropped from the team. After rousing Ron - it was needless to say - he and Ron both walked. They exited the hotel with their belongings and disapparated.

They knew Hermione was in danger and there was only one person who could help.

---

Hermione didn't sleep at all that night and she was dressed before Draco entered her room. She still didn't understand why everything was white.

Today would be just like the day before, she knew.

---

Harry and Ron arrived just outside Hogwarts grounds, and it was with expedience that they went to the back of the school. They pulled out their brooms and flew into the air before one of the second story windows.

"This is it," Harry said. He took his wand from his pocket and waved it, whispering, "Alohomora!" It slid open, but it didn't look wide enough for two grown men to slip through it. He said another spell and it grew twice as wide and long. Harry and Ron easily slipped through. This had been Professor Umbridge's old room - the one Sirius used to get into Hogwarts with, during their third year - when that hag had been at Hogwarts. It made Ron shudder.

"Merlin, this room gives me the willies."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Harry said quietly. "Come on." They exited the abandoned room and went down to where they knew Dumbledore's office would be.